


A Safe Place

by problematiquefave



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Awkwardness, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M, Meeting the Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 01:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15675060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/problematiquefave/pseuds/problematiquefave
Summary: Troy wakes up in a strange place and in clothes he doesn't recognize. It could be worse.





	A Safe Place

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by [this TFLN](http://www.textsfromlastnight.com/Text-Replies-73274.html) I saw a while back.
> 
> Comments are appreciated. You can also find me on [Tumblr](https://problematiquefics.tumblr.com/).

Troy wakes up to sunlight streaming through the windows and a bed that smells like fresh laundry. It would be a nice morning if it weren’t for the pounding behind his temples – the feeling of a woodpecker on the inside of his skull. It would also be nice if he knew where he was. The sheets, the blinds, the pictures on the wall – none of this is recognizable in his groggy, aching state.

Pushing himself up right, he presses the palm of his hand to his forehead, shutting his eyes tight as he tries to will back the nausea rumbling in his stomach. Not for the first time, he tells himself he needs to stop letting Nick talk him into trying whatever the younger man had procured. As before, he doubts it’s a resolution that he’ll keep.

Never in Troy Otto’s life did he think there was someone or something that could make him so weak – that could make his knees go soft or worm past his resolutions. It’s a dangerous thing that Nick has managed to accomplish; he’s got a willing thrall and he knows that. He knows that Troy would die for him, would kill for him, and everything in between. He doesn’t use it to those extremes but he does use it to make Troy keep him company on night’s where he wants to get high out of his mind.

Opening his eyes again, Troy squints as he looks around the room. It’s surprisingly clean considering the places he and Nick have ended up before. There’s an outdated calendar hanging above a desk stacked high with loose papers. On the walls are various posters, of movies and bands and even a couple of celebrities. There’s a dresser and a radiator; beside the queen-sized bed Troy just woke up on is a table that – thank God – has his cellphone. It’s a flip-phone from 2004. Nick is always encouraging him to update since it’s six years out of date and a pain to use but since Nick is pretty much the only person he contacts with it, it works.

Speaking of…

He grabs his phone and types out a text message as quickly as he can considering it’s a numeric keypad and not one of those slide-out ones. **_‘Where am I? And why the fuck did you leave me here?’_** the message reads as he hits send. Troy closes his eyes again as he waits for it to buzz and signal that Nick’s gotten back to him.

It does, after a second, though all it does is make Troy want to hurl his phone across the room. **_‘Relax. I left you somewhere safe plus you have all of my weed so you know I’ll come back for you.’_** Nick texts and, despite the advice, Troy can’t relax. Waking up in strange place, the ramifications of a night out with Nick pounding inside his head, isn’t easy to ignore.

**_‘Where is safe?’_** Troy responds. The minutes tick by and Nick doesn’t get back to him – it doesn’t surprise him but it does piss him off and a pissed off Troy is not something you want to contend with.

Troy feels under the pillows and behind the bed, fingers searching for the other thing his boyfriend said he left behind. It’s not on the bed so he goes to the desk next, checking under the piles of papers and in the drawers. Striking out again, he checks the dresser and finds it stashed in a pair of worn, plaid boxers. His hand wraps around the baggie and pulls it out.

He rifles through the dressers again, debating whether he wants to risk these clothes of unknown origin, he also thinks about how he’s going to destroy the weed. Flushing would be easiest but fire wouldn’t fuck up the pipes of this house if it even has running water. Maybe he’ll luck out a find a garbage disposal – that always works nicely.

Deciding against taking the clothing even though he’s pretty sure he’s already wearing some of them – he _knows_ he didn’t go out last night in too-tight, flannel pajama pants and sans a shirt – Troy leaves the bedroom, poking his head out into the hallway before venturing further into the house. It seems to be a nice, suburban home. Troy can’t understand for the life of them how they ended up here as he wanders into the kitchen.

The baggie of weed is clutched tight in the palm of his hand as he approaches the sink, lightly flicking on the tap. The water runs and the switch next to the sink turns on the disposal. Troy shoves the weed down the sink, waiting until the sound of the disposal clears before he flips it off. Turning around to find a trash can for the empty plastic bag, he finds himself face-to-face with a middle-aged blonde woman in fuzzy pink PJs. To say she looks confused would be an understatement.

“You’re not Nick,” she says after a moment, eying him up and down as if trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. In that moment, Troy regrets nothing more than his decision to forego ‘borrowing’ a shirt. He blames his lack of forethought on Nick – if it weren’t for Nick’s decision to drag him to God knows where and leave him there without explanation, pissing him off in the process, than none of this would’ve happened. Sounds about right.

Realizing that he’s just been standing there, Troy gives a shaky nod in response to her question. A second later, he realizes he should introduce himself but he can’t manage to wrap his tongue around the words.

The woman is surprisingly calm, all things considered. She looks confused and is clearly wary but she’s not screaming, not calling the cops, and not threatening him with a shotgun so he considers it an overall positive. She is silent though, expectant of an introduction or explanation. Troy doesn’t haven’t one. She knows Nick but he doesn’t know her.

“Is Nick here?” she asks after the seconds tick by with nothing from Troy. It finally elicits a response from him.

“No. No, uh…” Stuttering. It’s his way of trying to seem harmless – which he is, in this case, because he doesn’t want to be arrested for breaking and entering or what have you. “He left earlier, I think. Said he’d come back.”

“For the drugs?”

“It’s just weed.” For the briefest second, Troy reflects on the fact he would never have said that before he met Nick. Drugs, alcohol, cigarettes – all of it was bad and, while he still isn’t fond of any of it, he can tolerate it better. It’s interesting but pointless in this moment, something to think about later if he doesn’t put it off. Again. “But yeah.”

She gives him a small, wry smile – it doesn’t meet her eyes but she looks like she’s trying to play nice. It’s a familiar expression. The mere idea of considering that disappears the second she speaks. “I know my son well.”

Troy’s brow furrows, eyes widening a fraction. “You’re son?”

“Of twenty years, though it doesn’t always feel that way,” she replied. “But you’re not my son and I’d really like to know who you are and why you’re in my house.”

“Troy, ma’am,” he answers automatically. “I’m…” Is Nick even out to his mother? This isn’t something they’ve talked about before. Meeting the family just hasn’t come up, though that’s likely because of his own troubles. That’s also why he chokes on how to explain his connection Nick. Disowned and threatened with a gun for being gay at seventeen – it’s been seven years since Troy left the ranch, got away from the world, and he’s still grappling with it. “We’re friends. We went out last night and I… Don’t really remember what happened.”

She nods, her expression remaining annoyingly neutral. “Then I don’t want to know what happened,” she tells him. “I don’t suppose you know where you’re clothes are?”

“No.” At the same time he speaks, he realizes he must be wearing Nick’s clothes and the room he woke up in must have been belonged to him too. “I, uh…”

“It’s fine. Why don’t you grab one of Nick’s shirts?” She tilted her head in the direction of the hallway. “I’m guessing you’re waiting until he gets back from wherever he went?”

“If you don’t mind? He asked for me to wait.”

“Not at all. I don’t see track marks on your arms and that’s an improvement over half the people he’s brought home in the past.” A small chuckle leaves her, not quite as amused as it hopes to be. But he appreciates a laugh to other options. “Go on. Since I’m not the only one awake, I’ll start on breakfast.”

Troy nods at her and slips away, retracing his footsteps back to Nick’s room. The door shuts with a soft click and he leans back against it, sighing. He knows that meeting the family is supposed to be awkward – his boyfriend has forced him to watch enough romantic comedies for it but drilled into his brain – but he thinks it could’ve been a lot better if he hadn’t been thrown off the deep end. But no, consideration just isn’t one of Nick’s strong suits. Fortunately, that’s not why he’s with him.

Going to the dresser, Troy ruffles around until he find a shirt that fits. Slipping it on, he wanders back to his phone and checks for a reply from Nick but there isn’t one. Whatever. He’s already got his revenge – and maybe if he stops hiding in the bedroom he can wheedle some embarrassing childhood stories out of Nick’s mom. With that in mind, he returns to the kitchen.

“I don’t think you told me your name,” he says as he returns, noting the ingredients that have appeared on the counters. Eggs, bacons, pancake batter – seems like she’s going for the full meal. He tears his eyes away and meets hers. “Sorry. Did you need help?”

“You can call me Madison,” she answers, looking amused by him. “And I’d appreciate if you could mix up the batter.”

“Can do, ma’am.” Out of the corner of his eyes, Troy catches the amused look she gives him but he ignores, choosing to do as she asked instead. It’s simple work, dumping a bag of mix in a bowl and adding water and some egg substitute because, according to Madison, her daughter is vegan.

Troy doesn’t ask.

She takes the batter and points him to some fruit sitting on the kitchen counter, asking him to slice them up. Like before, he does what she tells him to without argument. Madison seems relaxed – she even hums a small tune while she’s cooking the pancakes – but he feels like he’s standing on eggshells, despite having cracked none. It’s not too surprise though. Troy has never done well with authority figures.

Madison plates the last pancake as she says, “I’m going to wake the others. Set the table, will you?” He nods at her, looking up and meeting her eyes just before she heads towards the bedrooms.

There’s a split second after she’s gone that Troy thinks about bolting. Despite being barefoot and in pajamas, he’s absolutely not sure about meeting the other members of Nick’s family. He doesn’t though; he curses his boyfriend – not for the first time this morning – and grabs plates and silverware from where he saw Madison get them earlier, setting the table and placing the dishes in the center. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, and fruit – it’s a hearty American breakfast, accompanied with a block of butter and bottle of syrup that he sets on the table just a young brunette wanders into the room.

“You must be Nick’s boyfriend,” she says, appraising him. Even though his general personality can be summed in paranoia and sullenness, when he says she’s appraising him, he’s not lying. The girl eyes him and then, when she seemingly makes her conclusion, takes a seat at the table. “He’s told me about you.”

“He hasn’t told me about you,” he replies, glancing up at two more approaching footsteps. A tan-skinned man and Madison appear. “About any of you.”

She shrugs her shoulders. “He said he wasn’t sure you’d want to meet us.” The girl is piling pancakes onto her plate as she speaks, the man taking a seat beside her and Madison walking behind him into the kitchen. “Wouldn’t tell me why but I got the impression he’d thought you’d freak.”

“Yet he leaves me here without even telling me your names.” He isn’t sure whether to be annoyed, upset, or on edge so rather than think, he slides into his seat. The girl picks up the plate of bacon in front of her and hands it to him without even touching the greasy pieces of pork.

The girl isn’t the one to answer Troy; it’s the man instead. “Well I’m Travis, Madison’s fiancé, and this is Alicia. You’re Troy, right?”

His gaze jumps from the girl – Alicia – to Travis, head tilting with a small nod. “I’m the only one in the dark here?”

Travis shakes his head. “No,” he answers, “Nick’s not the best at telling us things so we’ve learned to adapt. It’s nice to meet you though. We’d been wondering what he was getting up to after he moved out.”

“He said found a roommate,” Madison adds, taking the seat between Troy and Travis, “he left out the boyfriend part.” She gives him a small smile and picks up the syrup bottle, offering it to him. “But it is nice to meet you, as unexpected as this situation is.”

Troy takes the syrup from her and well… It’s weird. There’s no denying that all of this is bizarre and unorthodox but that’s not new territory for him. It’s the domestic part – the part where he’s sitting around a table in pajamas with a family, where all the food is warm and there’s no alcohol in the parents’ glasses. No mimosas with whiskey, no yelling over the dinner table, and no plates breaking on the floor. It’s awkward but the Clarks managed to coax a small grin out of him here and there, including him in on the conversation.

A conversation the falls quiet when the front door opens. Four sets of eyes turn to look as Nick walks through the door, a jacket slung over his shoulder and his hair a mess. He takes in the sigh before with a wryly amused grin.

“Guess I’m late.”

Troy is the one to reply, dry and somewhat irritated. “ _Very_.”

Nick shoots him an apologetic look, tossing his jacket on the counter and walking towards him. “It’s not been too bad I hope.”

“For us, no,” Alicia tells him as he comes to stand beside Troy’s chair. “But I don’t know about you. Your boyfriend knows a lot of embarrassing stories now.” The wicked grin on her lips is admirable – Troy doesn’t know if he likes her but he can respect the no-shit attitude she’s been copping throughout breakfast.

“Really?

“ _Really_.” Alicia sets down her fork and leans back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. “In fact, I was just telling him about that time you ate month old leftovers from the back of our fridge and the ensuing aftermath.

“You’re the one the dared me to do it,” he shoots back.

Alicia pins him with a look. “You’re still the dumbass that ate it and spent the next two days dying on our bathroom floor.”

Nick shakes his head, place a hand on Troy’s shoulder. It’s warm and the weight is comforting – the domesticity of this situation isn’t lost him nor is how foreign that is to him. But, despite the part of him predicting doom and chaos, he likes it. It feels safe and that’s not something he’s felt in a long time, if he’s ever felt it.

“Don’t you just love my family?”

Troy hums. “They’re not too bad.”


End file.
